Hello! Did you even look at my program? It believe it does exactly what you asked. If there are 0 obs asign a value to an unknown character variable.

Here is a modification that assigns No OBS to all the character variables.

data heart; stop; set sashelp.heart; run; data heart; if 0 then modify heart end=eof; array _c[*] _character_; if eof and _n_ eq 1 then do; do _n_ = 1 to dim(_c); _c[_n_] = 'No observations'; end; output; end; stop; run; proc print data=heart; run;

On 2/24/12, Data _null_; <iebupdte@gmail.com> wrote: > This should work with or without macro. Notice the first character > variables will recieve the message text. If it is too short as in > this example it will be truncated. > > data class; > stop; > set sashelp.class; > run; > data class; > if 0 then modify class end=eof; > array _c[*] _character_; > if eof and _n_ eq 1 then do; > _c[1] = 'No observations'; > output; > end; > stop; > run; > proc print data=class; > run; > > On 2/24/12, sas quest <sasquest@gmail.com> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I want to assign a value to a variable as "No observations" from an >> empty dataset that changes its variables each time it is run. The >> dataset is inside a complex macro. >> >> I know many ways to create it and display it but inside the macro i >> find it difficult................ >> >> i need something like this: >> >> data abc; >> set xyz; >> >> /*code needed here to create var*/ >> >> &var="No observations"; >> run; >> >> The above macro variable "var" should be chosen from the datset xyz >> which changes its variable names dynamically. >> >> >> Thanks in advance >> >